Showing results by narrator "Stephen McLaughlin"

France is in a rut, and so is French cuisine. Twenty-five years ago it was hard to have a bad meal in France; now, in some cities and towns, it is a challenge to find a good one. For the first time in the annals of modern cooking, the most influential chefs and the most talked-about restaurants in the world are not French. Within France, large segments of the wine industry are in crisis, cherished artisanal cheeses are threatened with extinction, and bistros and brasseries are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Thirteen stories have been compiled as Alec Waugh looks back over his career as an author, and takes from his writing those which he feels are amongst his most personal creations, bringing them together into a panorama. Told in the first person, My Place in the Bazaar represents Waugh's varied experience and view of life as his enchanting stories take place in a variety of world-wide settings.

This panoramic book tells the story of how revolutionary ideas from the Enlightenment about freedom, equality, evolution, and democracy have reverberated through modern history and shaped the world as we know it today.

The unheralded story of how salvage helped the Allies win back North Africa. By the time America joined World War II, Edward Ellsberg had already earned his place as one of the world’s great marine salvage engineers, and his best-selling accounts of raising doomed submarines and histories of classic diving operations had made him a literary star.

Diane Cutler is half drunk and half stoned when she sees her stepfather carrying the body out of the house. She and her boyfriend look on, horrified, as real estate tycoon Preston Daniels loads his dead mistress into the car. Unable to resist their curiosity, they follow him and watch as he dumps the poor woman's body in the rocks and sand of the Cape Cod landfill.

A dying art collector asks Bernhardt to revisit him in his darkest hour. The first time Betty Giles went missing, her employers wanted her dead. They hired Alan Bernhardt, theater director and sometimes PI, to find her, but when he discovered their scheme, he drew a sawed-off shotgun to save her life. Now Betty's missing again, hiding somewhere in Europe, and her old bosses want her found. Will Bernhardt deliver her to the man who once tried to have her killed?

It was November 1806. The explorers had gone without food for one day, then two. Their leader, not yet thirty, drove on, determined to ascend the great mountain. Waist deep in snow, he reluctantly turned back. But Zebulon Pike had not been defeated. His name remained on the unclimbed peak-and new adventures lay ahead of him and his republic. In Citizen Explorer, historian Jared Orsi provides the first modern biography of this soldier and explorer, who rivaled contemporaries Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

Austin Holloway came to Los Angeles in the 1930s with nothing but a briefcase, a few hundred dollars, and a letter of introduction to a local radio station. The son of a revival tent preacher, Holloway wanted to bring the good word to the airwaves, first radio and then television. He had no idea he was starting an empire.

From the author of The Wind in the Willows comes this story of a boy who befriends a lazy, but quite pleasant dragon that takes up residence nearby. When the townspeople call in St. George, the eminent dragon-slayer, to do battle, it's up to the boy to sort things out - and stick up for his newfound friend. It's a hilarious story that will have you cheering for the dragon and his pal.

Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and Davy Crockett are some of the roughest, toughest characters to ever blaze the frontier. Clever as the crack of a whip and strong as a wildcat, these tall-tale heroes each left a legacy of larger-than-life deeds that has captured the American imagination for over a century. Three rib-tickling tracks tell the whole story -- believe it or not.

Imagine a time of fairies and giants, when good always triumphed over evil, and bravery and cunning saveed the day. That's the world inhabited by this collection of favorite fairy tales, retold in charming prose by Andrew Lang. Children will love hearing how Jack made his fortune; how a quick-thinking queen saved her baby from Rumpelstiltskin; how a clever cat turned his master into a marquis; and how even a spiteful fairy couldn't stop true love from waking a sleeping princess.

Decorated artilleryman Edgar Mason was forced to find new work when the British Empire replaced its foot soldiers with monstrous machines. Agamemnon Frost, however, is far from the foppish man-about-town he appears to be. He's working to protect the Earth from an alien invasion being planned by a face-changing creature known as Pandarus. And on the night he plans to confront the aliens, he enlists Mason to assist him. For a man to love a man is a serious crime in Victorian England. But when Mason meets Frost, his heart thunders and his blood catches fire.

Alec Waugh first saw the West Indies on a trip round the world, in 1926, when his ship called in at Guadeloupe. Fifteen months later he returned for a long stay at Martinique; it was the beginning of a lifelong interest in these fascinating islands that were to provide him with the material for many books and articles. In The Sugar Islands, a book to be dipped into at leisure, Mr. Waugh has selected pieces from his writings, with the intention of compiling both a travelogue (there is a wealth of interesting information for the would-be traveller) and a chronological commentary on the development of the islands during the last 30 years.

Part sentimental journey revisiting old well-loved scenes of former travels, and part search for new, out-of-the-way lands, Alec Waugh's travel book tells of a journey halfway round the world. But in new or old places, the author's sense of romance and adventure, his gift of combining past and present, his ability to create a mood and tell a story provide continuously enlightening and enlivening reading. The chief object of these travels was to visit the Seychelles Islands. This remote British colony, lost in the immensity of the Indian Ocean, is a world forgotten by the world, a world in itself.

In this remarkable exploration of the Catholic world, prominent Catholic author and papal biographer George Weigel offers a luminous collection of letters to young Catholics, not-so-young Catholics, and curious souls who wonder what it means to be Catholic today. Letters to a Young Catholic will inspire not only the young generation of Catholics whose World Youth Day celebrations have launched an era of renewal for the Church, but also the faithful, the doubtful, and the searchers of every age.